


Daughters Of Janus

by CourierNinetyTwo



Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Angst, F/F, First Time, Friends With Benefits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-26
Updated: 2017-07-26
Packaged: 2018-12-07 08:29:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11619792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CourierNinetyTwo/pseuds/CourierNinetyTwo
Summary: Ann and Panther are different people. They have to be, or she won't be able to stop herself from falling in love.





	Daughters Of Janus

**Author's Note:**

> Commissioned by kasumikamigawa.

It wasn't a date.

Ann repeated the words inside her mind again and again as she got off the train at Shinjuku, keeping her headphones on and hands in her pockets. She didn't want to attract anyone's attention, especially when the hunt for the Phantom Thieves was in full swing and she happened to be in her school uniform. For now, anyway.

Makoto had said she'd be in the alley behind the bookstore, but Ann's phone buzzed with a text as she rounded the corner. Killing her music with a tap on the screen, she swiped across it to display the message: _Inside already. Waiting for you._

If it was a date, they would have gone in together.

Shaking her head to dismiss that thought, Ann tapped the Metaverse app, willing it to take her into the labyrinth of Mementos. Everything was lost to a colorful emptiness and the clatter of chains before she emerged anew, masked and consumed by red. The weight of her school-bag was gone, replaced with a coiled whip clipped to her side, and Ann was briefly grateful for the skin-tight latex, if only because it was warm enough to ward off the unnatural chill of the subway tunnels.

Makoto was waiting by the shuttered ticket booth, one hand fiddling with her revolver. For a moment, Ann watched those slender fingers move, drawing circles around the edge of the trigger guard in an endless loop. When she took a step forward, her heel clicked against cold concrete and Makoto stiffened, hand seizing the gun's grip before she realized the source of the sound.

"Come on, Queen." Ann kept her tone light, ignoring the spike of tension in the room as Makoto eased her hand away from the weapon. "Were you expecting anyone else?"

"No." A smile flashed under that steel mask. "Of course you're light on your feet, Panther."

It was one of the rules: codenames only. This had to be something separate from the real world, from their lives where everything had consequences. In a way, the Metaverse was a fantasy, larger than life and stretching the limits of reality, and Ann didn't have to look any further than their outfits to confirm that. Exactly _whose_ fantasy she was had only started to make sense in recent weeks, the seductive red to Makoto's protective black, and it was nice to pretend that this was what they brought out in each other, that this was meant to be -- even if _this_ could could only be an exchange of skin to skin.

"Panther?" Makoto's voice snapped Ann back to the present, and the older girl shifted from foot to foot, restless.

"Someone's eager." Teasing was easy while in disguise; confident words sweet on her tongue as strawberry cream. The more she imitated the mask, the better it fit. "You'd think I kept you waiting forever."

"It feels like it here, sometimes." Makoto admitted, but desire darkened her eyes like a drop of blood in red wine.

Ann closed the distance between them in two short clicks, shoving Makoto back against the wall before she claimed a deep, biting kiss. No matter how it felt, they only had a few hours here, and she couldn't stand to waste another minute.

\--

Their first kiss wasn't in Mementos.

It happened after a long night studying, when Ann offered to let Makoto stay over instead of risking that she'd miss the last train. A call to Sae had gone unanswered, leaving Makoto abuzz with nervous energy that she didn't truly have permission, and Ann felt it jumping off her skin like static electricity as they climbed into bed together. Her pajamas didn't quite fit Makoto -- too long in the legs but too narrow in the shoulders -- but Ann had bit her tongue and watched as the older girl struggled to tug the shirt back off, guilt preventing her from offering to help and interest stopping her from looking away.

Yet she hadn't been subtle enough by half, because as soon as the hem of the shirt went back over Makoto's head, their eyes met, and Ann couldn't even pretend she wasn't staring. All she could do was blush and look away, rolling over onto her other side as if gazing out the window would somehow undo the last thirty seconds. There was no sound but breathing and the rustle of sheets before Ann felt a hand against her back, Makoto's palm burning like a brand through the thin fabric of her camisole.

Ann squeezed her eyes shut and counted to five, making sure it wasn't a dream before she turned back around, face now an inch from Makoto's. The fingers at her back had slipped to her ribs with the movement, a still but persistent pressure.

There were a hundred things Ann wanted to say, but the words wouldn't leave her lips. Not when Makoto's mouth was on hers, seeking, wanting.

Later, she realized they should have talked. That had been her and Makoto's chance to clear the air completely, to lay out their feelings before things escalated, but instead the next few weeks were punctuated by a series of near misses. They were almost caught making out on Shujin's roof by Kawakami, and the night she went over to the Niijima apartment, Sae came home an hour early, and Ann thought Makoto was going to snap her pen in half until she finally made an excuse to leave.

It had to be a secret. That part really didn't need to be said, Ann supposed, even though it may as well have been a twenty ton weight crushing her shoulders. Hiding the fact that she was a Phantom Thief was easy -- who ran around yelling that they were a criminal at the top of their lungs? -- but acting she didn't have feelings for Makoto felt like holding a pill under her tongue, pretending the bitterness wasn't seeping through with every passing second.

There were plenty of reasons why. Sae, first and foremost, was hot on the Thieves' tail, even sending cops to the school to interrogate anyone who might have been involved, and Makoto had confessed the other day to seeing Ann's name on one of her sister's files, listed as a "victim of the Kamoshida incident". The reminder dropped a lump of lead into Ann's stomach, left it pitted, gutted.

When people thought she was 'involved' with Kamoshida -- she felt ill just remembering it -- they took every opportunity to bring it up in conversation, rumors following her like bloodied footsteps. Ann was used to standing out in every room, but the thought of shining that spotlight on Makoto evoked a primal sort of panic. If the students at Shujin thought she was 'ruining' the student council president, if Sae put two and two together about when exactly they met, the connection to the Phantom Thieves stretched between them like a leyline.

So sometimes they kissed. Sometimes one of them pressed for more and it got interrupted.

It wasn't until a knockdown drag-out fight in the Metaverse that Ann found out what it was like to go all the way. She and Makoto had been in the van for hours, listening to Morgana chatter between floors while they slugged it out with Shadow after Shadow. Akira's list of targets was a mile long, and right before Ann had been about to call it a night, they were ambushed by a massive one, pulsing red with rage.

The Shadow hit Makoto first, sent her sprawling, and she didn't stagger to her feet until Ann had summoned Carmen, Akira's appearing with a flutter of shadowy wings in the same breath. A streak of crimson was smeared down Makoto's chin as she called Johanna into the fray, but the Shadow was relentless, attacking her again even while columns of fire burned and twisting curses stuck in its back like shuriken. It shrugged off a full six shots of the revolver and a nuclear strike, forcing Makoto to heal herself before the Shadow simply beat her into the ground.

"Queen, fall back!" Akira shouted, swapping Arsene out for Matador with a snap of his fingers.

"We have to take it out first!" Makoto yelled back, breath ragged as she gripped Johanna's handlebars tight. "Panther, can you--"

She didn't have to finish that sentence. Ann commanded Carmen to mend what she could, enough to give Makoto a second wind before a blinding explosion from Johanna left the Shadow dazed. Matador's flag snapped downward, and Akira followed up the attack with a pulsating neon blast, the burst of psychic energy turning their enemy into motes of darkness.

The second she was sure it was dead, Ann ran over to Makoto, who was panting from exertion, sweat and blood staining her face. It looked like Carmen had repaired her broken nose on the fly, but Makoto's lip was still swollen, a split in her eyebrow from the Shadow's bulging knuckles held together by a thread. Ann could only imagine what she looked like under her clothes, and Akira sent them back to one of the waystations immediately, promising to send Morgana by after he took Yusuke and Ryuji to change one last heart.

As the rattle of the engine faded down the tunnel, Ann sat down next to Makoto on the bench, the fluorescent light from above casting them both in a harsh glow. The blood on Makoto's chin was almost luminous, rich and red, and without thinking Ann reached over to wipe it away with a swipe of her thumb.

"Hey." Makoto winced, and Ann's eyes widened, realizing there was a scratch underneath the busted lip.

She didn't say she was sorry. Instead, she kissed it better.

What Ann hadn't expected was for Makoto to aggressively return the kiss, exposing a hunger she'd never seen before. One became another until they were gasping against each other's mouth, and spiked knuckles hit the bench with a sharp clang before Makoto's hands were seeking out the zippers on her catsuit, stalling once the metal tabs were captured between thumb and forefinger.

"This..." Their faces were so close together as Makoto whispered, but Ann couldn't overlook the masks between them, one last barrier of separation. "Can we do this?"

"Why not?" She didn't want to stop, not when they finally had the chance. "It's not like anyone's going to know."

Makoto hesitated, just long enough for a stab of guilt to pierce Ann's chest. The line was drawn, acknowledged in silence, and it was the soft hiss of parting silver teeth that broke the quiet, revealing her body inch by inch as the zipper was drawn downward. They kissed again as Ann was stripped of her second skin, gloves tossed to the floor so she could feel the warmth of Makoto's body under unbuckled leather.

The negotiation was wordless. When Ann pulled Makoto's mouth away from her neck and to her shoulder instead, the reason was understood, and she moaned softly as teeth scraped the hollow of her collarbone. She traced the lean muscle of the older girl's shoulders, following it to the tense flexion in Makoto's back, which prompted Ann to start massaging against the sorest spots, even if she wasn't sure how much pain had come from the fight and how much from struggling against this.

Whether out of restraint or inherent nature, Makoto didn't make much noise, the occasional ragged gasp telling Ann she was in the right place. Half those sounds were muffled against her breasts, anyway, Makoto's hot mouth bringing pleasure with lips and tongue until Ann had to bite her lip not to cry out. She brought one hand down to the tangled juncture of her catsuit, guiding Makoto past stretched red latex and over the blonde curls between her thighs, an invitation that couldn't possibly be mistaken.

There was more fumbling than Ann cared to admit, having to lift her hips to let Makoto's fingers explore any further, and even then it took a moment for the excitement of being touched to turn to actual pleasure. A spark of need guttered in the pit of Ann's stomach when Makoto shifted her position on the bench, straddling one thigh so she could look Ann right in the eyes while moving her hand in quickening thrusts. She held that starved, curious gaze with her own, letting out a short cry when Makoto's thumb found the base of her clit.

Ann's back ended up pressed against the glass surrounding the waystation when her hips jerked, needing balance and finding Makoto's lips instead. She was overwhelmed by the heat spiraling under her skin, desperate friction and a slick, constant rhythm finally toppling her over the edge into a sudden, shaking release. If she hadn't already been sitting, Ann was pretty sure she would have collapsed to the ground, but even so, she felt unsettled as Makoto pulled her fingers away, an echo of bliss pulsing through Ann's body as she saw how they glistened.

"Was...was that enough?" Despite Makoto's success, she sounded far from confident, staring at her own hand in idle fascination.

"Of course you're--" The next word stuck in Ann's throat, and she swallowed it down, offering up another. "It was definitely enough."

She took hold of Makoto's wrist, tugging it forward until the same two fingers that had been inside her were at her lips. Ann was stumbling in the dark, finding her way in brief moments of connection, but she guessed it was a good thing when her tongue licked a drop of arousal from Makoto's hand, if the full-bodied shiver from the older girl was any indication. The taste was familiar enough, and Ann didn't stop until the only thing on the back of her tongue was clean skin, the faint salt of sweat.

Makoto trembled like a dam was about to break inside her.

Maybe they didn't have enough time for this and maybe she didn't know really what she was doing, but that didn't stop Ann from pushing Makoto down against the bench and kissing her again, hands wandering at will. She earned a moan by giving Makoto's breasts a light squeeze, a hiss when she accidentally brushed a bruise blossoming on one side of her ribs, but made up for it as knuckles brushed the dark thatch of hair between firm thighs, seeking the same wetness she had just sucked off Makoto's fingertips.

Ann found it with a gasp of her own, almost in awe at how easily her fingers slid past sensitive folds, spreading them with a whisper of pressure. Just that contact made Makoto thrash, a hand grabbing Ann's shoulder hard enough to bruise, but she was being pulled closer and not pushed away, signal enough to continue learning what felt best. Logically, Ann knew it wasn't much different than when she touched herself, but she never stared into deep red eyes while alone in her bed, never watched someone else's mouth form her name in a plea for more.

With one arm braced above Makoto's head, Ann found the right angle to slip a finger inside, feeling the warm give and take of muscle as Makoto clenched tight around her and groaned. She started slow, daring to curve her fingers only after she had carefully added a second one, and had to grab at the bench when Makoto's hips bucked upward, almost hard enough to knock her off it.

An apology formed on the older girl's mouth, but Ann sealed it away with her lips before the words broke forth, speeding up the pace of her hand. Syllables attempted melted into a desperate gasp, an exchange of breath, and Ann bowed her head to let their brows touch, not wanting Makoto to look away from her. Their masks clicked against each other, but Ann refused to let the reminder stop her movements, wedging her palm against Makoto's clit in the hope that the constant pressure would be enough.

Eventually it was, and Makoto went rigid with release, every exhale a hard burst out of her lungs as she squeezed her eyes shut. If not for the constant pull around her fingers, Makoto's body insistently drawing them in, Ann might have thought she was in pain. That notion faded when Makoto went slack against the bench, mumbling something under her breath that Ann strained to catch.

"What?" Maybe she wasn't supposed to have heard, but it was too hard not to ask.

"I said," Makoto paused to recover a few seconds longer, hair mussed over the top of her mask when her eyes opened again, "I've never felt like that before."

Fear's creeping chill left Ann in an instant, and she laughed. "Me either, Makoto. I mean, it's not like we--"

"You can't call me that." The older girl interrupted, afterglow's polish stripped from her gaze. "You can't use that name here."

Fuck. Of course she couldn't. "Sorry. My bad."

"Don't worry." Makoto lightly pushed against Ann's shoulders, and that was a sign to withdraw, fingers slipping free with a sound that made them both blush. "I know you didn't mean it."

 _This_ didn't mean anything, not when the world outside would be the same as soon as they returned to it. "Of course not."

Later, when Akira came to pick them up, Makoto took the driver's seat. Ann gave up shotgun without a fight, climbing into the back seat and willing herself to sleep.

In every dream, Makoto said her name over and over, face still framed in steel.

\--

These days, she knew how to unzip her catsuit for easy access, how longing would come to life in Makoto's eyes when she demanded, "On your knees for me, Queen."

Ann's fingers found purchase at the nape of Makoto's neck, gripped at the roots of her hair while the older girl kissed down her stomach to where she was wanted most. The first breath spilled across blonde curls, burnished gold wherever slickness spread across them, and made Ann moan, but she had to keep control. That was the only way this worked, the last emotional lock that kept her from saying the wrong thing in the heat of the moment.

Makoto licked a broad stripe from entrance to clit before beginning in earnest, the bridge of her nose bumping against sensitive nerves as she lapped at the source of Ann's heat, a friction she encouraged by grinding her hips against that relentless mouth. Her mask was a cool pressure just inches above, but Ann blocked it out by closing her eyes, focusing solely on the pleasure building by leaps and bounds every time Makoto's tongue delved inside.

She had to. She _had_ to or this wouldn't be enough, that even the ecstasy of orgasm could only mean so much when they were stealing away in the shadows to touch each other, but she couldn't hold Makoto's hand on the walk to the subway afterwards. Ann's other hand moved to clasp tight over her mouth, muffling a sound that wasn't quite a moan, and chased that simple physical release. Her heart didn't have to give in for her body to respond; it just needed the right, determined touch.

Yet the fact that Makoto felt so right was exactly why she happened to be this damn miserable.

A muffled gasp from below made Ann's eyes open, and she glanced down between stilted breaths, catching the movement of Makoto's arm. The older girl's hand worked between her own legs in quick strokes, the muscle in her forearm strained taut to keep up the rhythm as her lips wrapped around Ann's clit and sucked. She nearly knocked her head back against the wall of the subway as a potent dose of bliss shot through her from head to toe, wiping out any other thought.

"Like that." Her fingers tightened in Makoto's hair, pulled almost hard enough to hurt. "Do that again."

Makoto did and Ann cried out, ignoring the echo across cracked tiles. She was so close, and refused to stop until that spiderweb-thin thread of tension snapped, riding Makoto's face through wave after wave of selfish pleasure. For a moment, Ann didn't have to think about anything at all, stunned by the lightning crackling under her skin, starting fires she let burn and burn and burn. It was a hazy sort of disconnect, and she didn't return to herself until becoming aware of Makoto panting against the inside of one thigh, still not over that aching precipice.

With a hard tug, she wrenched Makoto's face up, revealing the flush of effort across sticky cheeks, and watched the almost frantic pace of thrusting fingers and twisting hips. "God, you look unbelievable like that. I bet you're close."

"Yes!" Makoto choked out an answer, but the need in her eyes was something sharper, like a blade right against an artery. "Ann, please--"

Hearing her name was a shock, enough to rob her of speech entirely. Makoto cursed and bowed her head, spending a moment later against her hand, and Ann's went slack against sweat-damp hair, falling back to one side. Her pulse was suddenly too quick, thundering against the inside of her chest, and when they finally found the will to look at each other again, Ann saw raw fear reflected back at her, like they had just been ushered to the edge of a cliff.

"I didn't..." Makoto began.

Ann spoke in the same breath. "It's fine. I know you didn't mean it."

It was the same words she'd heard weeks ago, but uttering them out loud, Ann came to terms how small and pointless they sounded. Makoto must have realized the same, because she crudely wiped her hand clean, tightening the buckles and laces of her uniform with shaking fingers. More than anything, Ann wanted to kiss her, to comfort her, but that tread near intimacy, the same intimacy they had both just soundly rejected.

"It's late." Makoto staggered to both feet, smoothing down her hair where Ann's fingers had pulled it askew. "Do you want a ride home? I brought my bike this time."

Today was Sunday, and Sundays were went her parents always flew out of the country, ready to start their week wherever they landed. No one was in the apartment, no one to stop her from inviting Makoto inside to shower, to eat, to bed.

She couldn't, or they wouldn't stop.

"The subway's still going. Don't worry about it." Somehow Ann managed a smile, placed a mask over the one she was already wearing. "But I'll see you tomorrow at school, right?"

That earned a stiff nod, a fraction of acknowledgment. "Yes."

Ann pulled out her phone, letting her eyes fall away from Makoto's and down to the screen. Her thumb hovered over the icon for a straining second before she tapped it, waiting for the world to turn itself inside out.

As the street solidified under her feet, Ann realized it was a shame the only hearts they couldn't change were each other's.

\--

 


End file.
